California’s Regimen for Sexual Predators Proves Controversial

Each room holds a single bed. There are some potted plants, and walls papered with glossy pictures ripped from magazines, mostly of sports cars and scantily clad women.

At first glance, it could be a college dorm. But the tiny, beige rooms at Atascadero State Hospital have barred windows and doors that lock from the outside.

Tucked among rolling hills and a dozen wineries midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Atascadero is the institution California has chosen for its experiment in easing society’s frustration with sex criminals.

Rather than set free the rapists and child molesters after they serve their sentences, the state locks up the worst of them inside this mental hospital for at least two more years, extendible if a judge or jury so decides.

When the law was passed in 1995, critics said it was tantamount to allowing indefinite detention. But the California Supreme Court ruled in January that the practice does not violate criminals’ rights. The U.S. Supreme Court also has found that such programs, now in place in 14 states, are constitutional.

But these rulings haven’t settled the debate between supporters of the system and those who think it smacks of locking them up and throwing away the key.

“It’s a misuse of psychiatry,” said Dr. Howard Zonana, a Yale University psychiatry professor who studied the issue for five years for the American Psychiatric Assn.

It’s tantamount to “lifelong preventive confinement after prison,” he said. “Once they get in, it’s very hard to get out.”

But psychologist Dale Arnold and others at Atascadero are proud of the work they do with sexually violent predators, or SVPs in professional terminology.

They teach them how to feel empathy for their victims. They help them cope with situations that could lead them to commit new crimes. They use drugs and behavior-modification methods. Mostly, the doctors say, they teach their patients to think differently--to take more responsibility for their actions and to stop rationalizing their sexual deviance.

“We teach there’s no cure for sex offenders, there’s just risk management,” said Arnold, who has worked with SVPs at Atascadero for 1 1/2 years. “It’s nice to see someone who has a problem say they need help.”

But does the treatment work? Is it possible to prevent a violent sex criminal from striking again? The experts themselves aren’t sure.

Steven Taylor, a Sacramento-area deputy district attorney who has had two SVPs committed to Atascadero, sees little choice. “We don’t have to let mad dogs run the streets,” he said.

The law is the instrument for getting them into the hospital, he said. “Most aren’t going to stay there forever. It’s a chance to maybe get recidivism numbers down a bit. They normally respond to years of treatment if you work on them long enough.”

But Jean Matulis, a Monterey County lawyer who represents several rapists at Atascadero, says many of her clients who deserve another chance are losing hope.

“A lot of these people have made mistakes, they’ve served their time and they’re not being given a second chance,” she said. “A lot of people wouldn’t be unhappy if they were locked up forever.”

The Associated Press was recently allowed a rare visit to Atascadero to talk with seven of the ex-convicts in the company of administrative staff and clinicians. The state picked the seven. Others who were not invited contacted the AP by telephone.

Hospital administrator Craig Nelson had the invited patients sign consent forms specifying whether their names and photos could be used. None agreed to be identified, though several were willing to be photographed.

Most were middle-aged and looked as normal as your next-door neighbor. But like all those who are considered for the program, they had been convicted of violent sexual attacks on at least two victims. And chances are high they will attack again without intensive therapy, Nelson says.

They attend group counseling sessions similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Clinicians monitor their sexual arousal to stimuli such as children, violence or bondage fantasies, using devices attached to the genitals to measure blood flow.

Patients are told to sniff ammonia during deviant sexual fantasies. Some also receive drugs such as Depo-Provera to depress sexual appetites.

“This is probably the best I’ve felt my whole life,” said one 43-year-old rapist, in and out of prison for five rapes over 20 years, choking back tears as he described his progress.

“I’ve learned that I’m not the victim, I never was. I chose to do my crimes,” he said. “The treatment program has given me back my life. I have a future now.”

According to California’s Department of Mental Health, of the 2,454 convicts who have been considered for treatment at Atascadero since the law changed, only 276 met the criteria.

Of these eligible inmates, 34 were set free, the DMH says. Of the remaining 242, 151 were committed to Atascadero, and 91 still await a ruling by a judge or jury (the choice is the inmate’s).

Once committed, the first phase of an inmate’s treatment is educational. It’s at phase two that the problems begin. Only about one-quarter of those committed have agreed to continue.

That’s because phase two requires participants to sign an agreement that anything they say in therapy may be used against them in court. So an inmate who has already served his time for one crime may find himself being prosecuted for another crime, or ruining his chance of a successful appeal.

“If they don’t go along with the treatment, they’re noncooperative. If they go along with the treatment, they open themselves up to more prosecution,” attorney Matulis said.

Some inmates agreed.

“They’re all afraid if they put their name on a release form, they’re going to be held responsible” and reduce the chances of release, a 50-year-old twice-convicted child molester from Orange County said by telephone.

Another inmate, a 48-year-old man with reddish-blond hair, a mustache and an intense gaze, has refused phase two for more than a year. Convicted of rape twice, he came across as the angriest in the invited group. He claimed that he didn’t belong at Atascadero--a warehouse for inmates, he said--and that prosecutors, judges and staff are out to get him.

“If the taxpayers think they’re spending their money on a successful treatment program, they’re wrong. It’s a flop,” he said.

So far, no one has completed the treatment program and been set free.

Meanwhile, each inmate of Atascadero costs the state about $107,000 a year, five times more than a regular convict.

Despite the high price, 13 other states--Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin--have jumped at courts’ invitation to keep sex offenders off the streets.

The American Psychiatric Assn. says that although child molesters, pedophiles and other similar offenders can be helped to reduce their urges, there is no effective treatment for rapists, who consciously choose to commit acts of violence.

This isn’t a message the DMH wants to hear, says Dr. Ted Donaldson, a psychologist who used to evaluate candidates for Atascadero. He said he was asked to leave after finding that of 20 offenders he tested between January and March 1996, only six met the criteria.

“Most sex offenders do not have any kind of mental impairment; they’re just criminals. They should be in prison,” said Donaldson, who now works primarily for defense lawyers.

“I don’t want these guys living next door, but I’m not sure I’m willing to break the law to keep them in,” he said. “If you want to just lock them up, that’s fine. Don’t have a program with doctors walking in sprinkling holy water on them.”

The therapists at Atascadero agree that there are no guarantees--at best, the criminals’ deviant desires can merely be curbed, their risk of committing new crimes reduced.

Fully aware that no proven treatment exists, Nelson says they’ve done enough research to at least be sure the patients belong there.

“We’re able to identify that small group of folks,” Nelson said. “How successful that treatment will be remains to be seen.”

A 57-year-old schizophrenic with shoulder-length black hair said he went to prison in 1991 for forcing nine people to give him oral sex. He said his 18 months at Atascadero have been helpful.

“I’ve never had treatment before. I’ve always fallen through the cracks,” he said quietly. “I’ve gained a lot from the program, but I’m one of the few.”